The main issue for the security of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is how to allow sensor nodes (SNs) to establish and share cryptographic keys in an energy-efficient, storage-efficient, and authentic manner for their secure data transmission. Furthermost recent studies carried out in this direction is concerned with homogeneous networks in which all sensor has identical characteristics and key administration mechanisms. Although Cluster-based sensor networks have demonstrated better achievements and performance as compared to homogeneous networks because of the several benefits of clustering. This inspired us to propose a secure key-establishment method for cluster-based sensor networks based on symmetric-key cryptography. Since symmetric key cryptography has small energy consumption, they are a great choice to prefer for securing the net-works. Even though symmetric key cryptography has high storage needs, this deficiency can be reduced by using suitable methods—the evaluation of the pro-posed work that the storage needs are reduced along with reduced energy consumption. The work offers a favorable level of security against various intruders and possible security threats and is additionally scalable than the state-of-the-art techniques.